Robert M. Pirsig

The author is a novelist and a teacher.

The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there. Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1974.

. . . what's happening is that each year our old flat earth of conventional reason becomes less and less adequate to handle the experiences we have and this is creating widespread feelings of topsy-turviness. As a result we're getting more and more people in irrational areas of thought&endash;occultism, mysticism, drug changes and the like&endash;because they feel the inadequacy of classical reason to handle what they know are real experiences. Ibid.

The cycle swings into each curve effortlessly, banking so that our weight is always down through the machine no matter what its angle is with the ground. The way is full of flowers and surprise views, tight turns one after another so that the whole world rolls and pirouettes and rise and falls away. Ibid.